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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28704963">Up Harbor to the Girl I Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric'>hopeless_eccentric</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castaway Vespa Ilkay, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Lighthouse Keeper Buddy Aurinko, Lighthouse Keeper Jet Sikuliaq, Lighthouses, Reunions, this isnt a lighthouse the movie au but aesthetically yeah, very much a nautical themed time gone by</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:20:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28704963</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Vespa wasn’t coming back. It didn’t matter how chaotic the sinking of their vessel had been or how jumbled the survivors were or that the voyage was meant to be her last. It didn’t matter what chances she had or what frail threads of hope Buddy could try to knit together to guard her from the biting cold of reality. Storms like the one raging just beyond the blinking light of the watchtower washed up many things, but Buddy was fairly sure her own past would never be one of them.</p><p>The decision to retire hadn’t been an easy one, but from the relaxation of a formerly unnoticed knot in her chest and the only time Jet Sikuliaq had ever hugged her, she was fairly certain it had been the right one.</p><p>However right the decision had been didn’t make a part of her regret it any less.</p><p>AKA time gone by but like. nautical</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Buddy Aurinko &amp; Jet Sikuliaq, Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Up Harbor to the Girl I Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>man. this is just time gone by for dark academics</p><p>Content warnings for unreality/hallucination mention, self destructive behaviors, mentions of shipwrecks, perilous weather, fakeout character death (vespa's fine guys i couldnt hurt her if i wanted to), discussion of rationing food/water for survival purposes</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Buddy Aurinko couldn’t have slept if she wanted to. Thoughts weren’t the only things dragging her eyelids back open and onto the familiar pattern of boards in the ceiling, for a storm had left the ocean snarling at the base of the lighthouse and caked an inky blackness onto every wall. Even the bedside candle made a shoddy protector in such a storm, for the wax dripped all too quickly and the flame sputtered every time another gust made the entirety of the rocky cliff face threaten to crack.</p><p>At the very least, she knew she wouldn’t have to feign rest for long.</p><p>For the time being, she reminded herself that there were worse bedmates than salt spray and the banshee’s cry of windswept sea and the weak, lone candle fighting both of them back. If her wife could weather such things for years, she supposed she could manage to tolerate them for a few more hours until she retired to the land.</p><p>Buddy’s candle wasn’t alone for long, and neither was she, for there was a steady, firm knock at the door of her quarters, followed by the glint of a light through the keyhole. The distant orange of the flame burned like a forest fire in the round, cornerless room, half-choked with the coal-stained morning air.</p><p>“Buddy,” a voice as cool and calm as the slate-gray sea on a pleasant day began. “It is time for your shift.”</p><p>“I’m coming, Jet,” Buddy assured him, doing her best to rise and dress as quickly and quietly as possible, so that, impossibly, she might hide her urge to stay in that bed until the ocean inevitably swallowed the lighthouse whole. “You don’t need to worry about a thing, darling.”</p><p>“May I come in?” Jet asked. “I am concerned about you.”</p><p>“What’s there to be concerned about, darling?” Buddy returned as easily as she could manage while throwing on a heavy sweater. Even if the fibers bit at her skin, she knew damn well they were nothing in comparison to the bared fangs of the salt wind. “I don’t see what you could possibly be worried about.”</p><p>“Buddy, we have manned this lighthouse together for nearly two years now, and not once have I known you to be more than thirteen seconds late to a shift,” Jet began. “You are almost a minute behind that.”</p><p>“Well, perhaps I’m choosing to be fashionably late,” Buddy huffed. “Call it a celebration.”</p><p>“Buddy.”</p><p>Buddy sighed, the taut, performative smile upon her lips wilting just in time for Jet’s hand to audibly fall upon the handle of the door.</p><p>“May I come in?”</p><p>“I won’t stop you.”</p><p>“That does not mean you wish for my company,” Jet returned.</p><p>“Yes,” Buddy conceded. “Come in if you must.”</p><p>On any other day, the creaking of the oak door would have cut through the heavy seaside air like a knife. However, it was dulled that day, dampened by the discordant chorus of crashing waves and bitter wind.</p><p>Even if change was creeping ever closer, at least Jet was exactly the same as Buddy had always known him. His thick, half-silvered hair was pulled back into a knot at the base of his skull and tucked neatly into a knit hat. He wore the same oatmeal colored sweater Buddy had only ever seen him take out for the worst days of weather, and she couldn’t help a grimace at the implications. The sweater had yet to meet its match in terms of a storm it couldn’t keep off of his shoulders, but from the way Jet’s usually steady hand twitched around the handle of his oil lamp, she could only assume the fight had been close.</p><p>However, his usually neutral, or on better days, pleasant expression of greeting had been replaced by a firm, set jaw. Buddy had known Jet Sikuliaq for long enough to be aware that he would see through her attempted ruse in an instant. </p><p>“I am sure you are aware that today is your last at the lighthouse,” he began simply.</p><p>“We’ve had a good run, you and I,” Buddy tried her best to smile. Jet did not return the expression.</p><p>“I am not concerned about that,” Jet returned. “I know you will write to me. You have said so many times and I trust your sincerity.”</p><p>“Then whatever could be the matter?”</p><p>Jet let out a breath and set down the oil lamp upon the wobbly rectangular table that tapped against the rounded wall every time it was so much as jostled. It did so again, and despite being what Buddy would have thought of as an annoyance any other day of the year, something panged in her chest in tandem. She supposed, when all was said and done, she would miss the place terribly.</p><p>“Buddy, I want you to know that I am proud of your decision to retire. I know it was a difficult one, and I am nearly certain that is what has stalled you today,” Jet began.</p><p>For just a moment, the storm seemed to draw back. Buddy wished it hadn’t, for the quiet upon her ears grated more than any crash of waves or burst of thunder ever could.</p><p>“I don’t see why we need to rehash what was already a terribly painful conversation—” Buddy started, waiting for Jet to break her off before she could say anything too rude to move things along before she had to let any of her thoughts linger on what she so desperately wanted to ignore. However, Jet did not break her off, merely waiting for her words to be washed away in the rising hiss of the ocean.</p><p>“In the two years we have manned this lighthouse together, we have seen the sea wash up a great many things. I am sorry to say your past was not one of them,” Jet began. “I am proud of you for looking forward, however painful it is to do so.”</p><p>“Well, Jet,” Buddy found herself smiling, however storm-battered the expression. “I suppose you’ve refused to break your incredibly long streak of being right before I have time to say my goodbyes.”</p><p>“There will be time for goodbyes when you hand off your shift to me in just under four hours,” Jet returned. “Now, I will be taking my rest.”</p><p>“As you ought to,” Buddy replied, nodding in farewell as she closed her hand around the frigid handle of the oil lamp and began her spiraling ascent into the peak of the lighthouse.</p><p>She had known that thoughts of Vespa would be inevitable before even opening her eyes that morning. Perhaps that had been why the pull of her bed had been so strong, even when it was hardly any warmer than the rest of the tower.</p><p>As Buddy paced in circles, gradually climbing higher and higher throughout the tower, she found her lips nearly parting in a bitter laugh, all but ready to peal away into the whirling wind if not for the sake of Jet’s sleep schedule, already damaged by the few minutes he had spent trying his hand at comfort. It felt all too apt that a woman who had spent the last two years spiraling in and out of misery and obsession and self-pity would spiral her way up into one last swan song of all three before her departure.</p><p>Vespa wasn’t coming back. It didn’t matter how chaotic the sinking of their vessel had been or how jumbled the survivors were or that the voyage was meant to be her last. It didn’t matter what chances she had or what frail threads of hope Buddy could try to knit together to guard her from the biting cold of reality. Storms like the one raging just beyond the blinking light of the watchtower washed up many things, but Buddy was fairly sure her own past would never be one of them.</p><p>The decision to retire hadn’t been an easy one, but from the relaxation of a formerly unnoticed knot in her chest and the only time Jet Sikuliaq had ever hugged her, she was fairly certain it had been the right one.</p><p>However right the decision had been didn’t make a part of her regret it any less.</p><p>The kind thing to do would be to retire to the land, just as she would tomorrow when she walked the dirt path up to the nearby shipping town, this time without plans of turning back. That didn’t mean that every step wouldn’t ache, just as every passing second felt like another cry of a funeral bell as she stared out onto the great, empty sea and swallowed, trying and failing to assure herself it would remain that way.</p><p>Buddy had her expectations for her early morning shift. The weather would be terrible and the sky would be a tragically ugly shade of slate, and if she was lucky, she wouldn’t have to lift a finger to help any ships, for none would be as dauntless or as stupid to brave the foam and spray. There certainly wouldn’t be any rafts or any sea-soaked and trembling castaways crawling into the rocky sand and coughing up a lung of salt water into the mud at the foot of the lighthouse.</p><p>The majority of her expectations were fulfilled.</p><p>She all but threw the lantern aside to blaze a message of recognition through the bright white eye of the lighthouse, though, upon rushing to the window once more, it seemed all the person heaving themselves forward against the desperate pull of the sea could do was press onward, rather than raise their head.</p><p>“Jet!” Buddy heard herself shout as she reached for the oil lamp again. Even if she knew neither the pounding of her feet down the whirling steps or the sound of her voice would wake him, the rearing head of adrenaline in her chest commanded her to try.</p><p>She told herself to kill her hope before it could blossom. Hundreds of people were lost to the sea, and she doubted the poor soul audibly clamoring at the door of the lighthouse was anyone but a nearby fisherman blown off course and hanging onto the remains of their ship.</p><p>However, Buddy had not been able to kill that same hope for two years. In her failure, it sank its fangs into her nerves and made her legs fly faster as rows of stone and stairs flew past her.</p><p>Buddy hardly had to lay a hand on the door to the lighthouse before a screech of salt-stained wind threw it open and cast the woman into her arms. Only adrenaline kept Buddy on her feet, for under any other circumstances, she was sure she would not be able to keep the stranger aloft in one arm while her other forced the door shut and locked it, lest the wind pick up again.</p><p>“Here, darling, let’s have a seat,” Buddy murmured, if just to break the shuddering silence that writhed in the aftermath of the slamming door and the cacophony of wind battering at the lighthouse’s side.</p><p>“Where—” the woman began to stutter. “Where am I?”</p><p>“A lighthouse on the north coast of the Cerberus Province,” Buddy returned gently as her hands guided the stranger, more trembling rags than person, onto the stairs. “Do you think you’ll be able to walk much?”</p><p>The woman was quaking so badly Buddy couldn’t tell she was shaking her head until she spoke.</p><p>“I don’t think so,” she returned. “Sea legs.”</p><p>“Well, then,” Buddy smiled, even if it was twinged with worry. “I suppose I’ll have to carry you. You can take my quarters for now.”</p><p>“You really don’t—” the woman started, breaking off into a cough that made Buddy raise a pointed eyebrow.</p><p>“Don’t have to do what, darling?”</p><p>“Fine,” she huffed.</p><p>Buddy eased one hand behind the woman’s back and one behind her knees, trying her best to keep her mind off of just how cold and practically starved she felt until she was done focusing on the effort of dragging them both back up the stairs. Even despite the woman’s small stature, Buddy’s arms were burning and trembling nearly as bad as the stranger was by the time she reached the landing on which her corridors lay.</p><p>“I think I can take it from here,” the woman murmured, though her knees buckled the moment Buddy set her down.</p><p>“Why don’t I help you for a little while longer?” Buddy offered.</p><p>The woman didn’t seem to have it within her to protest, letting her entire body weight crash into Buddy’s shoulder with the force of a wave. Buddy caught her easily. Even if she had to nearly drag the woman into the empty cot reserved for a third absent lighthouse keeper, the pounding of her heart in her chest beat stronger than the frigid ache in her bones and she managed the task with minimal trouble.</p><p>“There you are,” Buddy smiled.</p><p>The woman all but collapsed into bed, a sigh wheezing out of her like a final breath.</p><p>“Thank you,” she barely breathed.</p><p>“What do you need me to get for you, darling?”</p><p>The woman stilled for a moment at the words, and for just a second, Buddy was tempted to lay a pair of fingertips upon her wrist to check for a pulse. However, the stranger merely let out another sigh and shook her head.</p><p>“Is something the matter?” Buddy asked.</p><p>“I knew somebody who sounded a lot like you, but—” she shook her head again. “It’s my head playing tricks, I know it is. I’ve been—I don’t know how long I was on that raft, but I know I had to be alone the whole time. Nothing I saw made sense, but after enough hours out there, your head starts playing tricks.”</p><p>“I’m very sorry about that,” Buddy began slowly, trying her best to balance compassion with the brusqueness with which she usually conducted painful matters. “Is there anything I could get for you that might alleviate things?”</p><p>The stranger raised a frail, knotted hand to wave her off. From the lines in her wrist and the back of her hands, Buddy could only assume she had been a sailor for some time.</p><p>“I rationed alright,” she muttered into the pillow, as if her head were too heavy to lift. “Maybe a towel and new clothes.”</p><p>“That shouldn’t be any trouble at all. I’ll put the kettle on as well.”</p><p>“You don’t have to—”</p><p>“Of course I have to,” Buddy cut her off. “You’re trembling like a tax collector in church, darling. I’ll be back with your towels and clothes first.”</p><p>Buddy barely remembered her chores for the rush in which they happened, interspersed with a few extra sprints into the top of the tower to ensure no ships were missing the signal as she left her duties unattended. Just in case the woman had already begun to change, she hardly pushed the clothing and towels past the door before jogging off once more to boil water.</p><p>If she was being frank with herself, she almost expected the woman to be asleep by the time she returned. However, the stranger had dried her hair enough that Buddy could tell that somewhere, beneath the dampness, it wasn’t as dark as it had initially seemed. The rest of her was buried beneath sheets and quilts and an extra towel used as a blanket, while Buddy counted at least two overlarge sweaters hanging off of her skinny shoulders.</p><p>Even as sunrise began to fight tooth and nail against the inky black of the storm, it wasn’t enough that the window light could do anything more than whisper at the woman’s face. Instead, the only thing to cut through the dark of the room at all was the orange glow of Buddy’s oil lamp speaking its faint, reflected greeting into the circular room.</p><p>“Are you feeling any better?” Buddy asked, setting down the oil lamp at the doorside and going to retrieve a three legged stool to pull up to the woman’s bed.</p><p>“A little less cold.”</p><p>“Well, then,” Buddy smiled. “Why don’t you drink this? Not right away, mind you. A burnt tongue won’t do you much good.”</p><p>“I dunno,” the woman chuckled. “Anything sounds good right about now.”</p><p>“Are you feeling well enough that I could light some more of these candles, darling? It’s terribly dark in here.”</p><p>“I don’t think I could sleep if I wanted to right now,” the woman returned. “I could probably use it. My head keeps trying to make you look like my wife.”</p><p>Buddy swallowed. She sternly reminded herself not to hope.</p><p>“If it’s any consolation—and I’m sure it isn’t—I lost my own wife at sea some time ago,” Buddy replied slowly, glad of the inky dark for hiding her face as she retrieved the oil lamp to light the bedside candle.</p><p>“So that’s why you’re a lighthouse keeper, huh?”</p><p>“I’m retiring tomorrow,” Buddy sighed, eyes carefully trained on the flame. She doubted she could manage to pull them anywhere else. “It’s been two years. I can’t stand around feeling sorry for myself for the rest of my life.”</p><p>“You sound kinda disappointed.”</p><p>“My Vespa is gone,” she swallowed. “It’s a terrible thing to accept, but I know she wouldn’t want me to torment myself waiting for her here.”</p><p>Buddy finished lighting the candle and righted it upon the stranger’s bedside. However, when she turned back to meet her eye, alreadying preparing a wince for her accidental moment of vulnerability, she barely kept the lantern from dropping from her hand altogether. The gaze that met her own was not judgemental or uncomfortable or even sympathetically morose. Instead, the woman’s all too familiar face was wrought in shock, mouth agape and ocean-gray eyes wide.</p><p>“Bud,” she breathed in a voice that Buddy finally placed, having never heard it so thin and quiet before.</p><p>“Oh, my darling,” Buddy heard herself gasp, though the words hardly had time to hang in the air before they were pressed into the sweater-cushioned chest of a wife she hadn’t held through either of the last two winters they had weathered apart.</p><p>“You’re real,” Vespa whispered. “How are you real?”</p><p>“You said if we were separated to meet you at the lighthouse,” Buddy started to protest from her head’s nest between Vespa’s chest and the trembling hand running gentle lines through her hair.</p><p>“I didn’t mean you should waste two years waiting for me, Bud,” Vespa murmured. “Wherever you were, I would’ve found you. You kept me going all the way home. I couldn’t have just given up on you like that.”</p><p>“And don’t you see why I never left my post?”</p><p>When Buddy looked up again, she felt Vespa’s hands on either side of her face, holding her steady while those hard, clever eyes she had fallen in love with all those years ago poured over every single inch of her face. For once, she couldn’t find anything in her to detest the examination, for she knew the gaze to be a worshipful one that would exalt at every blemish and imperfection Buddy would otherwise wish to cover.</p><p>Buddy wanted to open her mouth to speak, but Vespa moved first, pressing a gentle prayer of a kiss into her forehead before letting their heads fall together. Neither motion lasted long, however, for soon the few candlelit inches between their lips grew to be too painful for either of them, and like the surf coming back to the harsh gray cliffs near the lighthouse, Buddy’s lips crashed homewards.</p><p>It wasn’t the best kiss of Buddy’s life, for far too much of the warm and swelling sensation in her chest was focused on how thin Vespa felt and the way she still shook under the layers of blankets and sweaters. However, she couldn’t find it within her to care about the quality of the kiss. Vespa was real and alive and in her arms, no matter how messy the embrace or how noticeable the failing of muscle memory as they tried their best to relearn lips that had become unfamiliar in the ache of absence.</p><p>“Vespa,” Buddy heard herself breathe, still shaking her head in disbelief. “How are you alive?”</p><p>“Being a doctor helps your odds of survival a hell of a lot,” Vespa chuckled.</p><p>Buddy couldn’t help a smile blooming from her lips with all the tenacity of wildflowers springing from a cliff face.</p><p>“I don’t know how I expected anything less from you,” she returned, though the words murmured away when Vespa kissed her once more, briefer, but no less sweet.</p><p>Somewhere, past the knitted death-black clouds overhead, the sun passed the line of the horizon.</p><p>“You said you’re retiring, right?”</p><p>“My last shift should be ending any minute now,” Buddy returned. “Why?”</p><p>Vespa let out a deep breath.</p><p>“Good,” she nodded. “I’ve heard too many sailors talking about coming home and finding their wife with somebody else. I only have to share you with a lighthouse for a few minutes.”</p><p>Perhaps the high strung cocktail of emotions merely bubbled over, or perhaps Vespa’s joke had merely been that funny. Either way, Buddy felt a reedy laugh burst past her lips before she could hold back such an unapologetically ugly sound. She would have regretted it had the company not been comfortable in a manner she had not known in far too long, or if Vespa too had not burst into her own quiet chuckle.</p><p>By the time Buddy brought herself back down to from the gales of laughter into which Vespa had sent her, she was struck by the realization of how long it had been since she had checked her watch. When she raised the device into the warm gold of the candlelight, she felt a strange, hopeful smile cross her lips.</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“Well, Vespa,” she began. “It looks like you won’t be sharing me at all. I’m happy to report I’ve been retired for three whole minutes now.”</p><p>“Oh, Bud,” Vespa breathed.</p><p>Even if they were already in some amalgamation of tangled limbs where Buddy had all but clamored off of her stool to pull Vespa close, Vespa took the opportunity to drag Buddy into a proper hug, as tight and desperate as it was soft and sweet.</p><p>“Why don’t we—” Buddy broke off for a yawn. “I’m terribly sorry, darling. I was hoping we might find some way to celebrate the matter, but I’m afraid this wretched sleep schedule of mine has decided to be disobedient.”</p><p>“I could use a nap,” Vespa snorted.</p><p>“Vespa, I wouldn’t want to waste your first day back home—”</p><p>“Buddy, a warm bed with you in it is all I’ve wanted for the last two years,” Vespa broke her off. “Get under the covers, you’re freezing.”</p><p>“I can’t be that cold,” Buddy scoffed, though she couldn’t find it in her to object to the offer of familiar arms and a warm bed and the promise of respite after a bitter storm that might as well have lasted for two years.</p><p>“Well, I’m cold and you’ve been holding me this whole goddamn time,” Vespa huffed upon turning over to bring Buddy into her arms. “Equilibrium and all that.”</p><p>“Very specific of you, darling,” Buddy chuckled.</p><p>“I’m a doctor, not a scientist,” Vespa snorted, though the laugh trailed away as her lips found the top of Buddy’s head and her arms squeezed tight around her shoulders. “God, I missed you so much.”</p><p>“I’m right here, Vespa. I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>“And I’m not going anywhere ever again,” Vespa returned.</p><p>On the other side of the battered glass window, the light of the sun began to cleave through the storm. Buddy knew she would be awake in time to appreciate the midday sun, but didn’t particularly feel the need to turn her head yet. The sun could not warm her better than Vespa’s embrace, nor could it shine brighter than Vespa’s smile. There was nothing the sun could give her that she didn’t already have here in the arms of her wife.</p><p>She would wake on her own time the next morning, and once that matter was finished, she could say her farewells to Jet and reaffirm her promises to write. She could be done with the lighthouse forever, as was she done with the fruitless, grief-fueled search for what would have inevitably come home to her anyway.</p><p>However, she supposed she could put off such dreams for after she slept. For the time being, she nuzzled her head closer to Vespa’s chest, just to hear her heartbeat, as firm and steady as the washing of waves against the base of the lighthouse she would no longer need to tend.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>MAN CANT BELIEVE THEY JUST INVENTED LOVE HUH</p><p>Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill steal your wife</p><p>Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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